Palin resigns, blasts press, 'starlets'

FAIRBANKS, Alaska — Gov. Sarah Palin resigned here Sunday with a blast at the media that reflected the frustrations that led her to leave office a year-and-a-half before her term expired. But speaking in a style that her fans see as plain talk and her detractors consider disjointed, she offered almost nothing about what she was planning to do next.

Plainly feeling liberated, Palin said that the freedom of the press was an important American right and one that members of the military died to protect.

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“So, how about, in honor of the American soldier, you quit making things up,” she said with an insistent voice, prompting loud applause and cheers from a mostly sympathetic audience gathered at a park here.

Palin didn’t specify what she was accusing reporters of making up, but suggested that she was weary of the attention on her family since being tapped as the Republican vice presidential nominee last summer.

“Our new governor has a very nice family, too, so leave his kids alone,” she demanded.

Immediately after Palin’s speech that man, Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, a Republican and Palin ally, was sworn in as the state’s governor.

As she stepped down from the stage, Palin’s future remained a mystery.

Concluding her remarks, she only said, “Let’s all enjoy the ride.”

Others speaking before and after her were equally cryptic, referring only vaguely to her future endeavors.

In an interview Saturday, Todd Palin, Sarah’s husband, said only that they would “play it by ear.” On Sunday, her father, Chuck Heath, said in an interview he thought his daughter would stay in the public arena but had no other insights into her plans.

It was widely thought that Palin would appear at the Reagan Presidential Library next month in California for a Republican women event, but Heath and Palin spokeswoman Meg Stapleton said Sunday that her appearance there was not confirmed.

Speaking for just under 20 minutes on sunny afternoon in between a 1930s-era steamship and a carousel on a street dubbed Klondike Avenue,” Palin was surrounded by a crowd of a few thousand, among them some of her most ardent supporters and a smaller group of vocal detractors.

For the first group, she offered some rabble-rousing lines and partisan red meat.

She went after reporters but also what she called the Hollywood “starlets” who rail against gun rights and the “partisan operatives” who filed the ethics complaints that helped drive her from office.

She even aimed her fire at an undefined group who she deemed insufficiently patriotic.

Some in this group, Palin said, “seem to just be hell-bent on maybe tearing down our nation, perpetuating some pessimism and suggesting American apologetics.”

As for the “starlets,” Palin seemed to be alluding to actress Ashley Judd, who targeted the former governor on behalf of an environmental group for supporting aerial wolf hunting.

She offered such individuals this message: “By the way, Hollywood needs to know: We eat, therefore we hunt.”

It wasn’t all score-settling, though. Palin also paid tribute to the wild beauty of her home state and singled out some of her supporters for thanks and praise. She also touched on her record on energy, ethics and the size of government.